What makes you think that Bush will focus on reducing unnecessary spending, or is it just hoping? I haven't seen anything from him to make me think that he will, but if it is in fact the case that he will I would feel better about him being in there for another term.

Craigsub, as far as the US being worth so much more, I never looked at it that way. Then again, I haven't seen those numbers before that our net has grown so much. Where do those figures come from?

I would still think that we should be able to balance things and have that net continue to grow without growing the debt part along with it. I see trillions of dollars, a debt number which is too large for me to even comprehend (who among us is ever going to see near that kind of $), and I have to think that something's got to be done about it eventually. It's the people that make up that $25 trillion in worth, but the govt. that owes the 5 trillion (or whatever the numbers were) correct? They certainly aren't about to take the 10k per head(or whatever it would break down to) from the people to pay off all the debt, so it sounds like the govt. is still in debt without a way to pay that money back, even if the country's worth has gone up.

I discovered by accident that you can left click to highlight an address then right click on the box and Google Search is an option. If it doesn't bring you directly there it sets up the link. The less typing the better for me.

TD- you have got to be kidding me with this zell miller crap. he is no more a democrat than you are.. that is just an angry, mean old man who is off his medication. his yelling and spitting and ranting just affirmed to me how desperately the republicans wanted and needed a scape-goat to open the can of worms on kerry. that guy was and is a complete tool. about as useful as a refrigerator in an igloo. give me a break.

did you bother to see his interview with chris matthews later on that night after his speech? this guy is a complete moron. his baffoon speech and dialect were even worse than george w(never thought that would be possible), and his views are sooooo dated. he even told chris matthews, that "i wish this was the old days where i could just take a switch to ya".. are you kidding me.. a grown man saying that to another grown man..

someone get this guy some valium and sit him down. he made himself and the state of georgia look bad.. very bad!!

I'm glad the conventions are over and am anxious to see if these candidates can get beyond the attack ads. The vice presidential debates should be interesting, I can't imagine two men more different than Cheney an Edwards.

An issue that is receiving more statewide attention here is education. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program is not viewed very positively in this state by either the Republicans or Democrats. I'm faced with sending my oldest child to kindergarten this fall. We're pretty committed to the public school system, both my wife and I went to public schools which prepared us well for college and careers. Our neighborhood public elementary school is celebrating the fact that 60-70 percent of the students are now passing basic proficiency tests in reading and math. 60-70 percent passing doesn't instill much confidence in me, 30 to 40 percent are failing. Funding for the public schools is a huge issue-teachers are faced with buying basic supplies out of their own pocket. I'm now understanding why so many people in our area send their kids to private schools. Is this similar to the rest of the country? I don't feel like our local schools should be funded by the federal gov't, but our governor is slashing and capping budgets across the board. More parental involvement, financially I mean, seems to be the answer, but in our city we've got open enrollment in public schools meaning kids are bused in from all over the city. Income levels for about 40 percent of the kids in our school are at or below the poverty level-meaning those parents probably aren't going to contribute in any meaningful way. It's a tough issue with long term ramifications.

Education is a funny topic... We send our kids to a school which takes NO funding... no church affiliation, not $1 in government $$$ anywhere. We pay about $7000 per year per child... The last I looked, in public education, appx. $12,000 per student is spent... and we are seeing some amazing results in this private school... Vouchers for private school would work wonders...

The cheapest private school close to us has a tuition of $17,000. The private schools here are academically rigorous and very successful. If need be we'll spend the money. Charter schools are popping up throughout our state, some successful, some not so great. Vouchers sound to me like the right answer, but in this state the idea of vouchers is like many other issues very polarizing. My wife and I have an admittedly idealistic view of public schools, feeling that if good people don't get involved, the schools won't get better. On the other hand, it bothers me to send my daughter, who at 5 already has some rudimentary reading and math skills, into a school where she may not get challenged academically as the teachers deal with issues like teaching English to a fraction of the class who need to learn English as a second language.

Public schools will never get better as long as the NEA is in control of the teachers... Parental involvement will likely get your child ostracized. We have a VERY close friend who is superintendent of schools in a fairly well off region here. He cannot tell a teacher anything. Period. A teacher in today's oublic schools answers to noone, especially "ignorant" parents... it is really sad... but true.

Zarak - It's wishful thinking. He is cutting taxes, yet proposing new programs. Therefore, unless he wants to get beaten up by the left for proposing more than we can affor, he might have to consider finally cutting other more frivalous spending....at least that's my hope.

BigJohn - Dude, ya gotta step back from the party line for a second and be objective. When you do so, you realize that Chris Matthew is a complete jacka$$. Zell was rev'd up based upon an ambush Matthews performed on an author resently. If you look up the text of that interview, Matthews was completely overly aggressive, disrespectful, and genuinely disgraceful as a journalist. He never let her finish her sentances, he took everything she said and distorted it or took it out of context.....he was a menace. She finally left the show during the break. She was originally on the show to discuss a completely different topic from her book, but was roped into talking about the swift-boat think simply because she was a conservative. Matthew's pinned her down as a representative of the President, which was wholely inaccurate. Matthews wanted to make a point for his boy Kerry and decided to lambast an innocent writer who had no relationship to the issue or any of the involved parties.

So, that brings us to Zell Miller. I ask, have you read his book? If you had, you might understand him better. He is a Democrat from the days before these extremist liberals took over the party. He is from the days of great moderate Democrats like JFK. He went to Washington to fill a post vacated by the death of the elected Senator. Once he got there, he came to understand what is going on in the Democratic party and who is running the show. His unwillingness to tow the party line and serve as the puppet of the unions and the special interest groups has forced him to the fringe of the party. His disgust with the situaiton in Washington led him to write his book, which pulls up the skirt of the Democratic party for all to see the dirty laundry. Because of that, the party has villified him and done whatever possible to discredit him and paint him as a loon.

It is with this understand that I suggest you think twice about writing him off like you have. Miller has the balls to stand on principals instead of falling in line with the rest of the crooks in Congress.

As far as the speech goes, someone had to tell the American public exactly what Kerry's true record was....not his damn war record. Miller didn't pussy-foot around the issue like everyone has been up until now. He has every right to be ticked off, since Kerry represents everything he dispises about what his party has become. He went from supporting a moderate Democrate of the likes of Clinton (key note 1982 I think) to watching his party be overrun with far-left socialists like Kerry and Kennedy and all the unions that they covet so much.

Finally, I want to go back to Chris Matthews. Zell did snap a little harder than he should, but I think that is was a miscommunication due to the loud crowd behind Matthews. Matthews asked a question about the anti-Republican rhetoric about starving our kids, etc and Zell thought that he was accusing Zell of using that language in reference to Kerry (worth finding speech online and re-listening to - makes more sense when you listen to it again). From that point on, Zell got pretty pissed off and went a little far. However, prior to that, he did something that needed to be done.....he basically told Matthews to shut up and let him answer the questions. Matthew's tried to bully Zell like he did that author and Zell took issue with that and put Matthew in his place. Matthews thinks his Crossfire (or whateve it's called) mentality is acceptable during civil political dialog and he's wrong.

For once, I think that I am going to keep quiet on an issue. I have degrees in Education and I used to teach high school here in Georgia. I also grew up in the Northeast. So, I have too much to say. Plus, I wouldn't want to tarnish my rep any further by exposing how jaded I am about my experiences.